For his second solo album, the former Pulp frontman lays waste to his typically polished sound with the help of de-prettier Steve Albini. The supposed Albini Effect loosens up the rarefied formalism of Jarvis and plops tweed-jacketed garage rock within the slack.

Sometimes the collaboration yields big rewards: "Angela" charges forward like a Nuggets leftover, and "Homewrecker!" plays like the Stooges at a sock hop (this comparison is helped along by Cocker's hooting and hollering, not to mention Steve MacKay's honking sax). More often, though, the results of Cocker's grittying-up are counterproductive. In place of a shiny gloss complementing the misanthropic darkness, we get a one-dimensional exhibition of the rock-and-roll animal descending into the second half of his life.

The meta quality of the immoral, libidinous singer refracted through unblinking irony feels too transparent for a songwriter of Cocker's depth — admissions like "I never said I was deep/But I am profoundly shallow" and dinosaur jokes used as pick-up lines at the Museum of Paleontology bring to mind another Cocker and his artless reading of "You Can Leave Your Hat On." The lesson remains: never underestimate the filthy desperation of the male ego.

Pulp friction Second-generation performers can remind us of their parents in all sorts of unexpected ways.

Major laser Of Naked Raygun's many conquests, perhaps their greatest was impressing Steve Albini. In a 1992 Maximumrocknroll interview, Albini — the sharp-tongued musician/producer who, among other things, once dismissed Nirvana as "R.E.M. with a fuzzbox" and the Pixies as "blandly entertaining college rock" — offered a rare public endorsement.

Chairmen of the boards Not unlike Swedish, Tagalog, and Esperanto, music is a language, with its own conjugations and (lewdly) dangling participles.

The Big Hurt: Bomb squad Plenty of great shit to get excited about this week: new Wilco and Jarvis Cocker, tons of Rolling Stones reissues, a double-disc Jonas Brothers DVD spectacular, and the long-awaited 31st edition of the venerable Now That's What I Call Music! series. But if you happen to have a few bucks left over . . .

Pulp free During the heyday of the Kinks, Ray Davies wrote with compassion about people in small towns clinging to a faded way of life.

A Steve Albini vitriol sampler The Steve Albini of today is a relatively jovial figure: hard-working, straight-talking, practical — but with the contented air of one who's been able to find his own way in a tricky field.

Flesh and blood The acclaimed folk/Americana quartet resume the whirlwind promo stretch leading up to their third full-length release, following 2008’s critically-lauded breakthrough Oh My God, Charlie Darwin and their ’07 debut, What the Crow Brings .

A talk with legendary producer and musician Martin Bisi Since opening BC Studio in Brooklyn in 1979, Martin Bisi has recorded dozens of records on the fringe of the avant-garde scene, including early Sonic Youth, Michael Gira's Swans and Angels of Light, and the cabaret breakout debut record from Boston's Dresden Dolls.

BROWN BIRD | FITS OF REASON | March 18, 2013 Brown Bird, a boundary-pushing Americana duo from Rhode Island, make music that touches upon that can't-put-my-finger-on-it amalgamation of past and future sounds.

NICK CAVE &AMP; THE BAD SEEDS | PUSH THE SKY AWAY | February 20, 2013 Much like the similarly low-key The Boatman's Call , Cave's highly anticipated 15th album with the Bad Seeds manages the puzzling feat of making a great band seem inconsequential, if not entirely absent.

SCOTT WALKER | BISH BOSCH | November 27, 2012 Scott Walker's late-period about-face is one of the strangest in the annals of pop music.